Loopers:EH 2880, Digitech Jamman, electrix repeater, boss...

[shedshrine]

Anybody using one/some of these? Whydja git watcha got?

[kayagum]

Here's my take on the gear so far:

2880: very cool if you want to do multitrack manipulation/performance, but very expensive and not as much foot control as you would think. I sold mine on the B/S/T forum.

JamMan: looks like a great box, but no reverse. And what's the point if you don't have reverse!

Boss: The RC-20XL looks great, only stores 11 samples though. Maybe the RC-50 is the ticket (looks like it could be better on the foot control end for live manipulation).

Electrix Repeater: haven't seen one in the store for years. Can't imagine they're easy to find.

Boomerang: Another good foot controlled board, but seems a little flimsy for gigging.

What I actually have: Boss SP202 (x2), SP303, Danelectro Reverse Delay, ZVex Lofi Loop Junky, through a SansAmp original. Worked brilliantly for my last theater gig.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

jam man has reverse.

i have the green line 6 thingy, works fine if you only need/want to deal with one loop at a time.

[kayagum]

jam man has reverse.

The reissue Jam Man (the Digitech version) does not.

The original Jam Man (the Lexicon version) probably does.

[Jeff White]

I have the Line6 box, used to have two, need two again.

The JamMan has Midi(???) The original one did, as I owned it at one point and it sounds fantastic.

IMHO, not having reverse... ummm... sucks.

The flagship Roland box seems like the bee's knees.

Jeff

[Meriphew]

Electrix Repeater: haven't seen one in the store for years. Can't imagine they're easy to find.

I bought one @ GC for about $300-$400 when they were closing them out (had the last OS on it). I never ended up using it, and ended up selling it on ebay a few years back for about $1k. They're supposed to be great units (I own a Filter Factory and a MoFx - both excellent), and I imagine they cost an arm and a leg now.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

ah. i had no idea digitech reissued it. i gave my original away years ago...now it's vintage. sheesh.

[jaguarsg]

i used to own the line 6 dl-4. i currently have an RC-20. i miss my DL-4.

the rc-20 is noisy, unfortunately.

if line 6 made a looper just like the dl-4's looping function, but with way more time, like around 2 minutes, it would be the end-all be-all static looper for me.

i wonder how the looperlative is ...

[douglas baldwin]

http://www.loopers-delight.com/loop.html
If you haven't been there, you're not really looping. Or long-delaying.
My vote: buy two Boss DD-20s. Total cost under $400 US street, and you have reverse, sound-on-sound looping, delays up to 43 seconds (read my post on the DD-20 at Looper's Delight "Tools of the Trade" to find out how...), very precise control of delay length, layer upon layer of loops of various lengths, oh< just figure your brain will melt and you'll suddenly realize three weeks have gone by, the rent is due, your partner has left, but these boxes! They make that WHRRRR_ZZZZIG_ZINNNNNG sound over and over!
(shameless advertising): You can purchase my ambient looping CD AND the Looper's Delight compilation CD at my web site, listed below

[Brian Brock]

Well I get to be the first to mention the Oberheim/Gibson Echoplex "Digital Pro". This thing sounds fine - with audio at 16/44 you can tell it's not the original sound but after setting the in and out gains well it sounds good. The ultimate awesomity of it is the multiply/insert. You can make a loop, then loop the loop while adding audio over it, getting a new loop twice as long - or, you can chop it in the middle with a different button press. You can configure it to copy the current loop into a blank space, so you can develop it into something else, then pop back to the original. You can also copy just the time/tempo. I've had mine for almost ten years and it has never bottommed out. It's main drawback is that it is rack-mounted, but I put mine in a handy two space case with a patchbay in the second space to bring all the connections to the front.

I've played with a few of the others here and there. Here are my opinions. I am primarily concerned with the usability and enjoyment of the devices.

The Boss RC20 felt way annoying to me. It seems fine if you want to store some preexisting loops and have them turn up during a show, but as a live composition/looping tool I think it would be seriously impedimentary. As far as I'm concerned, the new Digitech "JamMan" is the in the same boat. Although it has a removable compact flash card, so at least you can have more loops available. That they put new wine in an old bottle makes me feel a little bored - the original Lexicon JamMan was much-loved.

The Boss DD20 is a good delay pedal, but doesn't really have deep looping functionality like the Echoplex. Maybe with two you can do some interesting things. Not to say that a delay isn't a great thing to have.

The Electro-Harmonix 16 Second Digital Delay is a great delay. I got mine for stoopdi-little money at a Sitar Sentry ultramegasuperthon. It has a filter with adjustable depth/sweep to distinguish the loop from new audio. It lets you slap the audio around like a baby on a staircase. Up, down, backward, fast slow - I call it the silly box - you can change speed without pitch but not pitch without speed. The sliders are fun to play with. It has a defeatable metronome. It can act like a simple looper (ie, one loop length with overdubbing) with 4 minutes of record time.

The boomerang that I've played with feels very solid. It will let you drop speed/pitch by an octave, 2nd, 5th, etc (the Echoplex only drops an octave), reverse. As far as I know, no multiply-like functions.

The Repeater has always seemed like the best device out there, but I've never tried one. I guess they should have sold out to Fender or someone the way that the original Paradis LoopDelay sold to Oberheim/Gibson.

Any old delay with an infinite repeat can make a great looper. I've played with a DOD DFX9 for years. It really kicks ass.

[lg]

hardware: Oberheim EDP- great, complex, footpedal a must
software: cycling'74 radiaL- just starting to scratch surface of it, but so far a bundle of fun!

[Knights Who Say Neve]

Check out the Looperlative http://www.looperlative.com/.

It's more-or-less 8 stereo EDPs in 1 rack space. Plus you can talk directly to the designer on the forum and suggest new features.

Or if you can't swing $1499.00 (or just want to get your feet wet), try Zone Mobius http://zonemobius.com/download.html, which is a EDP clone in software, w/ timestretching and some other stuff added. I have problems getting it to work w/o glitching (latency problems), but what the hell, it's free.

[finleysound]

Dang! Someone beat me to the punch - but I second the recommendation for checking out Looper's Delight. Great forum. Very knowledge people.

I'm personally using the Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro (EDP). Used the Lexicon JamMan before that.

In deciding what looper to use, a lot of it comes down to functionality and how you will use it to make music. And, I guess, your budget. The interface on the EDP, when paired with a MIDI footcontroller, is pretty dang cool.

Matt

[comfortstarr]

So... I took the plunge. I got a good deal on a new RC-20XL. In looking at these things for a long time, there just isn't one that is perfect (maybe the RC-50, but perfect in my book includes affordability!). My thought is, they'd all be fun.

I'll write a "review" when I get it.

[comfortstarr]

So... I took the plunge. I got a good deal on a new RC-20XL. In looking at these things for a long time, there just isn't one that is perfect (maybe the RC-50, but perfect in my book includes affordability!). My thought is, they'd all be fun.

I'll write a "review" when I get it.

As promised:

These are really just first impressions...

--Fidelity wise I don't hear any degradation of tone.

--The quantize function has some drawbacks:
1) The bad drum beats which you're forced to hear if you tap tempo, because...
2) When you tap tempo, it always waits one measure before beginning the loop. This is awkward. If you don't want to hear the beats, you have to kind of guess where the loops going to start (there's a tiny flashing light, but with a beer or three in you, that's going to be problematic)
3) It would be nice if the click would only play the one measure, but oh well.

--That said, just doing free-from punches is fine. It's very easy to get the final punch right (I'm not sure if it's doing some secret quantizing, but it's a lot easier with this pedal than with the dd-20 delay).

--Since I don't have the foot controller, I'm not sure how well it switches between the patches. But, I guess I don't care too much. With 11 patches and no external storage, you couldn't really pre-load a set for a 1-person band sort of thing. I knew that going in, so no biggie.

--It really is a great composition tool. Maybe on the pricey side just for that, but it's so easy to use--and I got a good deal!

--It's got a nice feature for how it exits a loop: immediately upon pedal push, fade out, stop at the end. I think this will be useful in performance.

Anyways... I could see upgrading in the future to the RC-50, the new boomerang, some software solution controlled with a midi-foot-controller. But I think this will hold me for quite some time.